The response came from a 6th-grade girl identified only as Kalie, from Gault Elementary. Sussman met her during Earth Day events in Santa Cruz, Calif., recently, where he traveled to ask “What is the most serious threat facing mankind?”

“Kalie has been green-washed to the point where she readily admits, ‘Sometimes I wish we didn’t exist,’” Sussman reported.

The conversation started with Sussman’s question, and Kalie responded the most serious threat facing humanity today is simply “human existence.”

“I guess you mean there are too many humans on the planet,” he said.

“Yes.”

“What are they doing to harm this Earth?” he asked.

“They’re polluting all kinds of stuff. And the birds and animals are eating it and they die,” she said.

“How does that make you feel?”

“Kind of like I wish that they didn’t pollute, and that it never happened, and sometimes I wish we didn’t exist,” she said.

Sussman said he asked many people the same question.

“Whether it was the spokesman for the Sierra Club, the person pushing solar panels, the advocates for veganism, or the lady running for mayor, the answer was clear: The carbon footprint created by human beings is dangerously altering the climate, and the earth is on a collision course with doom unless the problem is corrected soon,” he said.

“None of these responses really surprised me, as I heard many similar comments in researching my book, ‘Eco-Tyranny.’”

However, he said there was a difference when he talked with Kalie (you can see Sussman’s interview, by clicking below).

“How many other youngsters like Kalie have been led to believe that the human species should be eliminated?” he wondered.

He cited a statement from U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, which also appears in his book.

Duncan said in a meeting with educators in Washington in 2010, “Right now, in the second decade of the 21st century, preparing our children to be good environmental citizens is some of the most important work any of us can do.”

Sussman asked, “Is Kalie an example of a child on her way to becoming a ‘good environmental citizen?’ Or is this 6th-grader a victim of eco-child abuse? No youngster should be manipulated into thinking that human life is invaluable and so expendable.”

He noted Duncan’s emphasis on the issue.

“Duncan went on to state, ‘Educators have a central role in this. A well-educated citizen knows that we must not act in this generation, in ways that endanger the next. They teach students about how the climate is changing. They explain the science behind climate change and how we can change our daily practices to help save the planet.’”

“Such reckless green rhetoric is becoming more commonplace,” Sussman said. “A story in the London Sunday Times quoted the British government’s ‘green adviser,’ Jonathon Porritt, who says couples raising more than two children are being ‘irresponsible’ by creating an unbearable burden on the environment.”

Sussman said Porritt, who chairs the British Sustainable Development Commission, claims curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must be at the heart of policies to fight global warming.

“He says political leaders and green campaigners should stop dodging the issue of environmental harm caused by an expanding population,” said Sussman, citing Poritt’s actual words, “I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate.”

“Certainly Al Gore, whose media materials are regularly used in the classroom, would agree with Porritt and Duncan. In his book ‘Earth in the Balance’ he spouts, ‘I have come to believe that we must take bold and unequivocal action: we must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization,’” Sussman said.

“Looks like young Kalie is already headlong in the environmental rescue plan. I hope she is reached by the truth,” he said.

Author

Brian Sussman is a San Francisco Bay Area media icon. For over twenty years he served as the region’s most celebrated television science reporter and meteorologist. Now he hosts a conservative talk radio show on KSF0-AM.